


Children of Origae-6

by doxydejour



Category: Alien: Covenant
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hugs, also flowers, and then it just sorta got out of hand, and then really got out of hand, hugs are important, it was meant to take ten minutes and it's been three hours, just a lot of fluff, look this was going to just be a simple short fluff piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 20:37:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11066667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doxydejour/pseuds/doxydejour
Summary: Inspired by a post Tumblr user rottenbrainstuff from about Walter being good with kids. It was meant to be a drabble. Apparently I just suck at simple drabbles.Daniels reflects on how good Walter is with children. Established relationship from a happy ending AU, because David didn't deserve to win.





	Children of Origae-6

Daniels sat in the cool, leafy shade of a tree at the edge of the woods, a closed book resting on her lap, and watched the children play. It was an old Earth game, one that involved a ball and chalk lines drawn on grass and a lot of shouting over who was meant to be where and why, and currently play was on hold whilst one of the children argued with Walter about the particulars of their latest round.

“He was offside,” the child - Sophie? Sarah? - said obstinately, the ball under one arm and a streak of mud up the side of her face. “He was! I saw him.”

“No, he wasn’t,” Walter replied patiently. He was crouched down so that he could look her in the face, and Daniels knew it was because he feared his height would make them afraid of him. He had nothing to be concerned about. All the children loved Walter, even before they were told he was an android. And the knowledge that he was synthetic just seemed to make them love him even more. “He was in the correct half of the pitch when he received the ball.”

“He wasn’t,” Sabrina - no - Samantha - no - Stephanie? mumbled, kicking at the ground with one small foot. “He was cheating.”

“He was not; you are mistaken. Perhaps you would like to apologise?”

The girl kicked at the grass harder. “No.”

“Sara.”

“…Okay. Fine. But if he does it again I’m gonna punch him.”

Daniels found herself hiding a smile behind her hand, but Walter looked stern. “No. Physical violence is never the answer to any problem, and if you inflict physical violence on Charlie then I will have to put you in time out.”

“Nah-uh.”

He mimicked the movement of her head, a short sideways nod. “Yah-huh.”

Sara looked at the synthetic solemnly, then abruptly her calm broke and she burst into giggles. “You’re silly,” she said, and ran back to join her team.

Walter cocked his head to one side, frowning, then shrugged and straightened up. A wooden whistle hung on a thin cord around his neck, and he waited for the children to finish their various conversations before giving it a short, sharp _tweeeep_. “Charlie was not offside,” he said simply. “Ball to Rosie Pike, please. Play on.”

His command of the children of Origae-6 was admirable - and enviable. Daniels had lost count of the number of times an exhausted parent would turn up on her doorstep, asking for Walter because Ellen/Michael/Olivia/Ezra/Penelope/Atticus/Forrest/James wouldn’t go to bed/stop talking about bees/eat their vegetables/believe their room wasn’t haunted until Walter confirmed that going to bed was good for them/bees were great but sleep was better/vegetables were important/ghosts don’t exist, because Walter was the synthetic and Walter knew _everything_ , and with the curiosity of youth the children were drawn to him like iron filings to a magnet. And if the magnet wasn’t present, the filings would roll around and generally make a nuisance of themselves until somebody fetched it.

Daniels frowned against the sun. _Huh. That analogy went bad fast_.

She didn’t mind admitting that she wasn’t like Walter. She had a hard time remembering who was who, but Walter never forgot any of them. Not their names, their birthdays, their favourite colour, the superhero they preferred to dress up as on Halloween, the job they wanted when they were older. He never forgot who lived where, who was allergic to what, who liked to be picked up and who didn’t.

And he never forgot to smile when they were around.

She often did.

Some days it was a real effort just to face the others. To pull her cheek muscles into something resembling happiness even while her chest was full of dread and foreboding. It had been ten years and she was safe, she knew so: but everyone else remembered what happened when Carrie Anne took her by surprise one dark Halloween night, jumping out from behind a tree wearing a sheet and yelling “boo” as children were wont to do, and Daniels had responded by screaming and crying. Which, of course, meant that Carrie Anne had also burst into tears, and comfort had to be given. Carrie Anne's from her mother, and Daniels from her lover.

The little girl had grown up now, seven years old with her head full of dragons and her memory full of holes, but Daniels knew the others remembered.

She knew Walter remembered.

It had been five years since the clumsy kiss under the willow tree at the edge of the lake, and four years since she had given up trying to persuade him to come to bed with her and read or draw whilst she slept. “I would only disturb you,” he had said. _No,_ she had thought in response as she smiled and shook her head, _David disturbed me. You’re the opposite_.

She knew the others had thought their relationship strange - everyone except Tennessee, whose loyalty to Walter was as unwavering as her own. It was understandable, really: the synthetic had not been meant to live amongst the colonists. His specific function had been to care for the Covenant and its slumbering crew, and there was a datapad containing a decommission order packed away in one of the crates.

Walter himself had brought it to her on the day the final prefab shelter had been completed and the others were throwing a celebratory barbecue and trying to figure out how to serve the most beer to well over a thousand people without using all the cups they had brought with them. She had been seated behind a desk in one of the administrative prefabs with Tennessee, going over duty rosters for the wood-felling team the next day. When Walter approached her with the datapad she taken it from him, read it. Blinked. Read it again. Shown it to Tennessee. Shared a look with Tennessee. Turned back to Walter. Said: “No.”

He had looked confused, in only that special way Walter could - like a puppy trying desperately to understand its owner’s command. He even tilted his head on one side. “No?” He had repeated. “I don’t understand.”

“No,” Daniels had replied.

“No.” Tennessee had echoed, with emphasis.

“No.” Walter had repeated. And that had been that.

In the weeks that followed she had heard people whispering. Eyes that were quickly averted, mouths that stopped moving when she entered the room. She was past caring. Tennessee knew how Walter had fought to save them, and she knew, and the synthetic knew, and nobody else should be made to understand. None of them should have to awaken in the night screaming and clawing at a thing that wasn’t there. None of them should even know that the thing even existed at all in the universe.The official line to the colonists had been an extension of the flare that had brought them out of cryosleep in the first place; most of the vital bridge crew lost in a tragic accident. A different message was transmitted back to Weyland Industries. It contained a lot of obscene language, even after Walter had edited it for her first.

Walter didn’t seem to notice any strange behaviour from the others, carrying out the duties he was given with the same small smile he wore whenever humans were around, a smile that wasn’t at all diminished when the colonists were uncertain or rude around him. That behaviour lasted around ten months, and then underwent a sudden shift when Lily-Jo Evans went into labour in the middle of the day when her husband was away on a survey with his team and the other medics were busy tending to a serious allergic reaction at the far end of their small camp. Lily-Jo was the first of the colonists to fall pregnant, many following shortly after her, and would be the first to have a child on Origae-6. Luckily, she had also been tending to one of the greenhouses with Walter when her waters broke, and the synthetic oversaw almost the entire birth before anyone had heard the screaming and came running. The quickest birth ever registered on Earth had been five minutes; Stanley Junior was born in nine, although his mother left five crescent-shaped indents on the back of Walter’s left hand.

Colony-wide acceptance had come hard on the heels of the birth. Overnight, Walter had changed from the-synthetic-who-wasn’t-supposed-to-be-here to the-synthetic-who-delivered-our-first-baby-isn’t-that-great, and Daniels had been relieved. After the Covenant had landed she was meant to become just an ordinary citizen, but given that she and the pilot had been the sole survivors of Paradise - the solar flare - they had been looked to as heroes, and were head of the small council that looked after all colony affairs. She had grown tired of having to spend five minutes of every meeting defending her friend’s place in the colony. After Stanley Junior’s first night in the world, she was never asked again.

It had taken Daniels four years of nightmares and self-therapy and talking to Tennessee to gather the courage to actually tell the synthetic how she felt. How the pain of Jacob’s death had faded to a dull ache and a head full of happy memories. That the wounds David had tried to inflict upon her whilst wearing Walter’s face had scabbed over and started to heal. That Walter made her feel safe, lit up her day, gave her somebody to smile at. After she had finished speaking, a staccato of sentences strung together by “ums” and “ahs” and the occasional “er”, he had been quiet. The confusion had faded to curiosity, and the curiosity to an emotion she had no name for. She had never seen him display it, and had no frame of reference from which to draw. 

His answer, as she should have predicted, was entirely practical: “Don’t you want children?”

“No,” she had said, trying to sound as confident as she hadn’t felt. “I want you.”

“I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, if you have not read my manual in full, but -”

“I have and I am.”

He had looked embarrassed, then. Synthetics couldn’t blush, but they could clear their throat, cast around for something to look at, frown. “Physical intimacy is very important for humans.”

“I agree,” Daniels had said. “I like hugs. Big hugs. For a long time.”

“I cannot return your feelings.”

“That’s a lie, and we both know it.”

He looked at her again, uncertain. “I’m not David.”

“Yes, I know. And I don’t think _he_ was capable of love, even with all his poetry and posturing and pretending he was better than you. He was too full of admiration for himself and what he could achieve with all his cleverness. You’re not, though. I mean you’re clever, clearly, you know lots of stuff about…lots of stuff. But you’re always trying to be kind, to be nice. You’re physically superior to everyone in this entire colony, and you know more than all of Mother’s databanks put together…and last week you used all that knowledge to make a swing from a tree branch based on my old childhood memories so that Stanley and Fey would know what it was like to go too high after too much cake and throw up all over their dad.”

That had sparked a smile. One of the instantaneous smiles that seemed to appear from nowhere, lighting up Walter’s entire face. “There was a lot to clean up afterwards. Wood shavings and clothing.”

She had laughed too. “I’ve never seen a man be so delighted to have vomit all over his head.”

The smile faded as quickly as it had appeared. “And if you insist on following your current course of action, you will never know that delight.”

She shook her head. “You’re seriously trying to put me off by telling me I’ll miss being vomited on?”

“You will miss being a mother.”

“I don’t think I will.”

“A human’s instinct -”

“-Is interchangeable between humans.” She had taken a deep breath, tried to steady her feelings, dancing on a razorwire of adrenaline and and beginning to lose her footing. “Walter…if you don’t feel the same, then that’s fine. I’m not trying to pressure you - or, hell, _order_ you, I was your captain after all - into doing something you don’t want. But…but I think you _do_ want, as much as I do at the very least, and…and I’m here saying that…well, I’m here.” She shrugged her shoulders. “God, that sounded so much better in my head.”

“It sounded alright spoken aloud.”

She hadn’t replied, out of words or wanting to force a response from him, perhaps both, perhaps neither. She had been staring down at the ground at this point, at the green of the grass against her bare toes, her hands against her hips, the sun warm on her back. There were birds on Origae-6, large hawk-like things with green and blue feathers that dazzled in the light, and a chorus of them had been singing in the distance. They completed two verses of indecipherable lyrics before he spoke again.

“Yes.”

She looked up. “Yes?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

And that had been that.

The kiss came a few weeks later, because romantic sunsets were meant to end that way - Walter had read it in a book, apparently, and who was she to complain? - and he moved in with her not long after. They would never share a bedroom, but they did share a sofa, and a breakfast table, and bad jokes, and sadness, and joy, and life. And children. All the children of Origae-6. Daniels found herself cast into the role of the practical aunt who struggled with tears and questions about unicorns but would show any child how to build a boat from spare parts and launch it across Landing Site Lake, whilst Walter was the beloved uncle who could sit and listen to a long rambling story that went nowhere for hours without ever getting bored, and would remember all the characters and ask about them again the next day.

She didn’t know how he did it. He had a superior memory, of course, but true caring came from the heart. Hers was bruised and battered, and slowly being put back together each shared day the dawn brought, and physiologically speaking he never had one to begin with - but that didn’t stop him for a second. It was every reason she loved him.

With a final _tweeeeeep_ of the whistle the game of foot-the-ball came to a close. The blue team were the clear winners, yet still Walter gave congratulatory chocolates to everyone. He didn’t like games that made anyone feel bad, and Daniels knew he secretly hoped this meant the children would grow to be confident in their endeavours. “This is a brave new world,” he had said to her once. “They need to explore it together, as equals.”

“Like us?”

“...Like us.”

After the children dispersed back to their homes for dinner he cast around for her, joining her when he spotted her small wave from under the tree. “I think the red team are improving,” he said as he sat beside her, close so that their arms were touching. “I observed a thirty-seven percent increase in their accuracy when passing the ball, and I believe Tommy and Jason have gotten over their disagreement about dinosaurs.”

“What did they disagree on?”

“Whether or not they could survive in space without helmets.”

She nodded sagely. “Ah, yes. That age-old question. It has haunted humanity these many years, and I am glad these two eight year olds have finally put it to rest.”

They smiled at one another, warm and at peace.

“You didn’t awaken during the night last night,” Walter said eventually, and she frowned at him.

“I…yes?”

“That marks forty-nine consecutive nights. A new record.” He paused, searching for the right words. “I’m proud of you.”

She put her arm around his shoulders - as far as she could reach anyway - and grinned. “Why do I feel like you’re coaching _me_ now?”

“That is my preferred role in our partnership.”

“Oh, really? I thought it was cooking.”

A small furrow appeared between his brows. “No. Cooking is better left to those who have to eat what is prepared.”

“Hey, now. I ate _all_ of that chili.”

“And I wish you hadn’t. I am still unclear as to how you managed to expel more than you actually consumed.”

She tsked. “And to think you once told me I might miss vomit if I threw my lot in with you.”

“No, I said you would miss bearing children.” The smile flickered. “…Do you?”

“For the last time, no.” It wouldn’t ever be the last time, but the question had stopped being an inquiry after the first time it was asked. It was now more of an emotional barometer: if her answer was short or cold, he knew not to speak about emotional matters until she was ready. If it was breezy or offhand, she was fine to discuss whatever he wanted.

He put one of his hands over hers. “May I show you something?”

The something was in a greenhouse at the back of the corn fields, his own personal tinkering shed full of the flora from the local area. Daniels had tried her best to stop herself from comparing Walter to the lunatic of a sibling they had left behind to rot on Paradise, and when he had first started amassing his collection she had privately admitted to herself that she was worried. But she needn’t have been: Walter destroyed nothing. In place of David’s violated corpses were flowers and ferns and bushes of all varieties, all healthy and alive, the workbenches around them littered with careful drawings and projections about how their interiors functioned. Her synthetic couldn’t bear death. He was devastated if one of his plants took ill, and so far hadn’t lost a single one through sheer perseverance. He had a knack for them as he had a knack with the children. A knack for living and for life.

A polar opposite that David would never have understood.

He brought her to a bench at the back of the workshop and carefully picked up a delicate orange flower with a thick stem and large, circular leaves that was growing out of a pot that had been painted a deep, dark blue. His expression was a mixture of pride and uncertainty. “I cross-bred two of the lilies from the lake to create this,” he said, a small tremor she couldn’t place in his voice. “It is a new type of flower and I wish to name it after you. With your permission.” When she remained silent, staring at the plant, he further clarified: “If that’s okay.”

“Okay,” she repeated, reaching out a hand to stroke one of the petals with the tips of her fingers. “More than okay. This is beautiful, Walter.”

“Yes,” he said. “Like you.” She smiled at the corniness of the words, but he wasn’t finished. “I was worried you wouldn’t like what I have done, considering what happened on Paradise.”

The odd quality in his tone fell into place. She wasn’t used to hearing Walter _sound_ worried - he avoided doing so, even when alarm was written all over his face. She supposed it was something to do with the programming they had given him for the Covenant mission. “Paradise was different,” she said. “This is different.”

“It was still created by someone who should not create.”

She put a hand on his arm. “Walter, not all creations are bad. None of yours ever have been. None of your drawings, none of your stories, none of your music. You can’t _hurt_ people with art. Well, no, you can, you can hurt their feelings and their beliefs, but…” She cut herself off with an annoyed growl, gathered herself, and started again: “Creations can only be as bad as the people who create them. You do not have a bad bone in your body.”

“I do not have any bones in my body, good or bad.”

“You’re picking an awkward time to go all literal on me, dear.”

He nodded. “You really do like it?”

“Yes. I really do. And I really like you, too.”

He placed the flower pot back down on the bench, pushing it gingerly back so that it was not liable to be knocked or damaged, then turned and enveloped her in a hug. “I love you,” he said, the words sounding so simple and sweet. He had never been so direct before, and it made her heart beat so fast that it nearly hurt. “Thank you.”

“For what?” She asked into his shoulder, which smelt of freshly mown grass and the aftershave she had given him for their first anniversary - the one he only ever wore on special occasions.

“For my life. Both my existence and my place on Origae-6. For loving me, and allowing me to love you.”

“That’s giving me a lot of credit for several things beyond my control, but you’re welcome.”

They stood together for a few more minutes, for there was nowhere else either of them needed to be, and only broke apart when a shout went up in the distance.

“ _Has anybody seen Walter anywhere?_ ”

Daniels groaned. “Duty calls.”

“Yes, I believe that is Lily-Jo. She’s having trouble with Stanley Junior’s recent obsession with climbing trees.”

“He’s going to be a feller, like his dad.”

“No, his father is a surveyor. You’re thinking of Scott McLansky.”

She rolled her eyes. “Right. Yep. That’s why they’re yelling for you, not me.”

“Do you mind?” He asked, another trace of anxiety suddenly present in his voice. “I can pretend I didn’t hear her call.”

She smiled. “I don’t mind at all. Not one tiny bit.” She walked to the door of the greenhouse, held it open, beckoned. “Come on, Walter. Your children await you.”

They walked out together into the sunset. “They are not _my_ children,” he said as the door closed behind them. “I just assist with them from time to time.”

She linked her arm through his as they started their long walk back through the corn to whichever homestead it was that needed his help. “We’re all of us your children in a way,” she said thoughtfully. “The children of Origae-6. Carried to our new home by a loyal man who protected us all through thick and thin.”

“That makes our relationship uncomfortably incestuous.”

She exaggerated a sigh. “Again with the literal interpretation.”

“Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I really am.”

“Okay, _dad_.”

“...”

“Yeah, that was weird. Sorry.”

They continued in this vein as they wound their way home, dropped it to help Lily-Jo Evans fetch Stanley Evans Junior down from a tree - Walter fetching, Daniels standing below shouting encouragement - then picked it up again behind their own front door and carried it long into the night. When Daniels awoke the next morning she found Walter lying beside her on the bed reading a book about botany, and as she settled into the crook of his arm she found herself wondering about what the day would bring.

Whatever it was, they would face it together.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this was going to have a downer ending with Daniels waking up from cryosleep and realising it was all a dream, but I am a sucker for this ship and decided that it was going to sail on strong. Fuck you, David. No bad times for this pair of lovelies today.
> 
> I've mostly taken Walter and Daniels' characterisations from the novel, such as Walter tending to the plants on the Covenant and not losing his hand (his arm gets slashed and fixes itself). Everything else is just my interpretation, and I hope I did the characters justice! They deserved better.


End file.
